Try Everything: The Systems Approach to Success

Key Insights

• Goals are outdated: In today's complex world, specific goals are less effective than adaptive systems that improve your odds over time
• Passion is overrated: Physical energy and mental alertness matter more than emotional passion for achieving results
• Systems beat goals: A repeatable process that builds personal value consistently outperforms chasing singular objectives
• Luck is manageable: You can't control luck directly, but you can increase your odds by expanding your perception and trying more things
• Failure teaches value: Most of what you try will fail, but each attempt builds skills and increases your chances of eventual success

Why Goals Don't Work Anymore

A century ago, goals made perfect sense. If you were a farmer with 40 acres to clear before winter, that was straightforward—your world changed predictably. Today, the complexity has exploded exponentially. Consider your smartphone: carrier selection, voice plans, data plans, 4G, Wi-Fi, countless apps. There's more technological complexity in your pocket than in an entire farm operation from 100 years ago.

In this modern reality, setting a specific goal is like galloping on a horse with a bow and arrow, trying to hit a moving target in the fog. You've only got one arrow. The odds of success are terrible. Even worse, while you're laser-focused on your goal, you're likely missing incredible opportunities around you. That tunnel vision prevents you from noticing better paths that could have been more valuable than your original objective.

This isn't a theory—it's observable in how billionaires succeed. They rarely follow a predetermined goal. Instead, they navigate opportunities, adapt to changing conditions, and capitalize on unexpected breaks. The focus on goals creates false security that blinds you to what's actually possible.

Systems: The Better Alternative

Instead of chasing goals, embrace systems. A system is something you do regularly that improves your odds without requiring a specific outcome. Your personal value increases even when projects fail miserably. This subtle shift—from outcome-focused to process-focused—fundamentally changes your probability of long-term success.

Consider two contrasting examples from real life. In high school, one person used a goal-oriented approach to dating: pick a specific girl, spend months planning "accidental" encounters, learn her interests. The typical results? She has a boyfriend, she doesn't like you, or both. The success rate was dismally low. Meanwhile, a friend named Manuel used a systems approach: ask every woman in the room. His failure rate was tremendous, but because of the law of numbers, he'd find someone willing to date him. More importantly, every interaction taught him something. He was essentially running A/B tests on pickup lines, learning which approaches worked best, and building rejection resilience. His personal value increased with each attempt, regardless of outcome.

Another powerful example: a tennis partner interviewed for jobs he didn't want—positions paying less or with terrible commutes he'd never accept. But these interviews served a system. Each one was practice in selling himself. He networked with people he wouldn't have met otherwise. His interview skills sharpened. One day, he went to an interview for a job he had no intention of taking. The interviewer said, "You're overqualified for this position, but our department head just left. You'd be perfect for that job." He got the position with a massive promotion. He didn't target that outcome, but by running his system consistently, he increased his odds until luck found him.

Building Complementary Skills

You don't need to be exceptional at anything. You just need working facility with several skills. When layered together, these competencies compound your value exponentially. Public speaking is one such skill. Take a course like Dale Carnegie, and suddenly you're a candidate for leadership positions simply because you have that extra layer. Everyone in that course started as a bad speaker and became competent. It's entirely learnable.

The author of Dilbert is not a world-class artist, writer, speaker, or business expert. None of these skills individually are exceptional. But combined? Those four "pretty good" skills created an empire spanning 2,000 newspapers in 65 countries. The combination was more powerful than mastery of any single skill.

This principle applies to everything. If you have a system for diet and a system for exercise, your energy increases. Every study shows that better energy leads to better test performance, increased charisma, improved relationships, and enhanced cognitive function. You become more effective at everything you attempt. Your personal value compounds.

The Exercise System: Energy Over Willpower

Most people approach exercise with a goal: run 10 miles weekly or complete a marathon. This requires willpower and pain tolerance. But here's the problem: anything that consistently hurts you will eventually trigger avoidance. It's like touching an electric fence repeatedly—eventually, you stop.

Replace willpower with habit. A habit builds through daily repetition combined with a reward. The system works like this: deliberately underdo it. If you could run three miles but know you'll be exhausted tomorrow, run two miles instead. When you finish, you feel good. Your energy lifts. That's the real game—lifting your energy.

Add a small reward at the end: a protein shake, good coffee, or something you enjoy. Eventually, you train yourself like a dog to crave exercise more than you crave avoiding it. People who exercise daily have figured this out. Those exercising three to four times weekly still hate it. Those at seven times weekly, done moderately, develop genuine habit. At 11 a.m. every morning, your body will instinctively want movement because you've trained it to expect the routine.

There's also a hypnotic hack: on days when you lack energy despite having time, put on your exercise clothes. Just wear them and walk around your house. The physical association of the clothing triggers the subroutine in your brain that activates your exercise mindset. This works about 70% of the time.

Why Passion Is Overrated

Ask any billionaire about success, and they'll say passion is essential. What else could they say publicly without sounding arrogant? They can't say, "I was smarter than poor people," or "I had insider information," or "I got lucky." Passion is the safe answer.

But examine this critically. A former commercial lender at a bank explained that the worst loan candidates were the passionate ones—those emotionally driven by their ideas. The best candidates were "grinders" with spreadsheets demonstrating realistic numbers and relevant experience. They weren't chasing dreams; they were executing plans.

Look at American Idol winners. The assumption is they succeeded through passion. But watch the full season. The early episodes show entire stadiums of passionate people. By the numbers, passion correlates more strongly with failure than success. Remove passion from the success formula, and everything remains approximately the same.

Instead of passion, focus on physical and mental energy. Be alert, energetic, and willing to tackle challenges. This isn't irrational passion—it's practical vigor. It's the difference between an emotional drive (which burns out) and sustainable energy (which compounds over time).

Luck: The Variable You Can Influence

Success is impossible without luck. Every successful person has benefited from fortunate breaks. You can't control lightning directly—it strikes or it doesn't. But you can move from a game with bad odds to one with better odds.

Researcher Dr. Richard Wiseman studied luck and lucky people. He discovered something remarkable: people who consider themselves lucky have a wider field of perception. They notice opportunities others miss because they're actually expecting to find them. They're not more clairvoyant; they're simply more observant.

More interestingly, Wiseman found you could take someone who considered themselves unlucky and shift their mindset through simple exercises—affirmations, prayers, or positive thinking. The technique mattered less than the mental shift. Once they believed luck was findable, they started noticing more opportunities. They literally perceived more.

This is how you manage luck: expand your field of perception through systems. Try more things. Meet more people. Attempt more projects. Most will fail, but each failure teaches something valuable and increases your odds for the next attempt. You can't summon lightning, but you can stand outside in the rain holding multiple lightning rods. The more often you're in position, the more likely luck finds you.

The 10% Success Rate That Changes Everything

Most things you try will fail. In a career spanning multiple industries and ventures, about 90% of projects don't work out. But those individual failures aren't the point. Each one teaches something applicable elsewhere. An embarrassing early failure—a tennis player's sweat-drying invention rejected by a patent attorney—led to valuable knowledge about intellectual property that benefited numerous future ventures.

When most attempts are high-risk, high-reward situations, expect most to fail. But those 10% that succeed? Combined with the accumulated knowledge from the 90% that didn't, they create something remarkable. The key is ensuring your personal value increases regardless of outcome.

This is why systems work. A system doesn't require success to be valuable. The process itself is the point. You're building skills, expanding networks, developing resilience, and positioning yourself for luck. Projects fail, but you don't.

Conclusion

Forget the oversimplified advice about goals and passion. Success in today's complex world requires a different approach. Build systems that improve your odds consistently. Develop complementary skills that compound your value. Maintain energy through sustainable habits rather than willpower. Expand your perception to recognize luck when it arrives. Try everything, fail frequently, learn constantly, and let your personal value increase with each attempt. The 10% that succeeds will surprise you.

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